Agony of De Feet

If my feet survive their time in Tanzania unscathed it will be miraculous. Just thought I'd let everyone know. I am looking at them now, and though they don't complain much, I can tell they are pining for their former days of luxury treatment like socks. Tanzanian feet live rough-and-tumble little lives down there.

Naturally, of course, there's no reason to wear anything but sandals here - even at work, all the ladies just switch into fancy sandals. So the feet see it all, tripping over enormous rocks in the uneven street, getting stomped in daladalas, and generally ending each day in a not-so-thin layer of grime. It's the dry season here, so those roads that are unpaved (read: 90% of roads) are essentially just packed down dust. A couple times I've looked down and thought, "Geez, my sandal tan is getting out of control", only to discover that a significant part of that "tan" could be scrubbed off. Ew. (In Kongwa, where all the dirt/dust is a pretty red-orange color, I was sure every evening that my feet had gotten terribly sunburned.) Probably doesn't help that I'm traveling around in rather shoddy sandals, either. I already ripped the between-the-toes piece out of the left shoe once on Sunday and had to shuffle around for a few hours, a rubber band holding it all together, before I found a fundi ya viatu (shoe repairman) open on the Sabbath. (But it's ok, because the shoes are purty.) Maybe my callouses will eventually let me wander around barefoot. Something to shoot for.

The frisbee excursion was a bust - turns out there IS a Tuesday frisbee league, but only when school is in session. Bummer. I'll bide my time until August 10th.